Classroom lessons related to Monday’s solar eclipse won’t be limited to the few moments when the moon passes in front of the sun and blocks most of its light in the early afternoon.
For instance, Peggy Hernandez, planetarium director in Elgin-based District U46, said she bought a few eclipse-themed children’s books to capitalize on the excitement and spur new learning in other subject areas.
One of them, “Someone is eating the Sun,” is about animals freaking out over the Sun during an eclipse, she said. While it is fiction, Hernandez said the book parallels old myths and debunked folk tales of eclipses, which were viewed in some cultures as an end-times moment, or that somehow the Moon was eating the Sun.
“(The eclipse) is the way to bring literacy into the classroom,” she Hernandez said.
Starting at 11:54 a.m. Monday, the moon will slowly start to block the sun, eventually covering up to 87 percent of the surface by 1:19 p.m.
The cosmic rarity presents opportunities for learning both during and well after the afternoon eclipse ends, Fox Valley teachers said.
In West Aurora School District 129, teachers have been able to develop lesson plans based on districtwide guidelines, spokesman Tony Martinez said. Though they will vary by grade, the lessons will build upon the district’s curriculum and align with statewide science standards, he said.
“It’s an event (students) can experience and not just read something in a book, but actually experience it and go outside,” he said.
Elementary and middle school students must have a permission slip signed by a parent to view the eclipse outside, and high school students will view the event unless a parent opts them out. Preschool students will not go outside the view the eclipse, Martinez said.
The district purchased 13,000 NASA-certified eclipse glasses, Martinez said. The purchase was made using some of the money from a $1 million grant for science equipment and supplies the district received from the Aurora-based Dunham Fund at the start of last school year, Martinez said.
“(The eclipse) gives students a better understanding of the real world events that are happening around them,” he said.
With the eclipse coming only a few days after classes started — and in some cases, before classes even start — the hype surrounding the event may last well into the school year and open up opportunities to study it, added U46’s Hernandez.
“With it being so early in the year, there was little time for prep,” she said. “Many may not be doing astronomy now, but when they do, teachers could be saying to their students, ‘Hey, remember what we saw back in August?'”
School District U46 has the added bonus of having its own planetarium, one of the few such facilities operated by a school district in the state. In the months leading up to the Aug. 21 eclipse, Hernandez shared potential lesson ideas, such as the eclipse-themed books.
As part of an agreement with U46 administrators, teachers in the Elgin-area district can conduct eclipse activities provided they completed a professional training session developed by Hernandez at the planetarium or online. Parents also had to sign permission slips to allow students to view the eclipse.
While some of the ideas were unsurprising — the lunar phases, how an eclipse forms, the daytime sky — she also suggested thinking beyond astronomy.
Debbie Perryman, U46’s science coordinator and a former Illinois Teacher of the Year, listed other topics to teach: orbital patterns, the structure and function of the human eye, how matter moves in waves, the visible light spectrum, and the difference between ultraviolet and infrared light.
And yes, students may even have the chance to observe how animals respond to an eclipse, she added.
Ironically, the U46 planetarium will not be having any viewing parties Monday, as Hernandez will be in Wyoming hoping to glimpse the eclipse along its path of totality, the roughly 70-mile-wide line across the United States in which a total solar eclipse will be visible.
She said some schools have prepared for this event. For instance, Kenyon Woods Middle School science classes will be all going outdoors to view the eclipse during their sixth period, Hernandez added. Some of the teachers even had “sun spotters,” devices that can track the Sun’s movement from below. Hundreds of classes are expected to participate in eclipse activities Monday, U46 officials have previously said.
Even classes that are indoors will be involved in some way, Hernandez said. Many classes will be live-streaming the eclipse online; Hernandez added the online professional development session she put up online also has useful indoor options for use.
“I feel I gave them the ammunition, the tools to do it,” said Hernandez. “But I cannot tell you what everyone (in U46) will be doing. But I did give them big ideas.”
